Business Insider: Western military is learning from the deadly experience of Ukrainians
The Jomsborg Training Center in Poland was created so that NATO instructors would teach Ukrainian soldiers how to fight there, Business Insider writes. Everything turned out the other way around: cadets from the Armed Forces of Ukraine transfer their combat experience to Western officers.
Sinead Baker
The front line in Ukraine is brutal and unforgiving: soldiers are often injured or even killed simply by moving through their own trenches, a western commander in charge of the Ukrainian soldiers' training program told Business Insider.
“As far as we know, Ukrainian troops are suffering heavy losses getting to their own trenches and evacuating from them, because the front has been stationary for a very long time,” said Brigadier General Atle Molde, commander of the Legion Task force, a multinational Norwegian—led force that trains Ukrainian soldiers in NATO territory..
Clouds of drones collect intelligence and attack mercilessly, so any movement is extremely risky. Ukrainian commanders say that the rotation of troops is one of the most vulnerable moments for soldiers on the front line.
The strip along the front line, saturated to the limit with drones, is often referred to as the “kill zone". Earlier, one Ukrainian official told Business Insider that it can take days just to get to the front lines, and that in many cases this is the most dangerous part of the task.
Troop rotation, resupply, and airlift also carry huge risks. It is precisely because of this danger that the Western training program pays special attention to movement inside trenches and sorties from them. At the Jomsborg camp, a purpose-built training center in eastern Poland, “saving lives” is at the forefront, Molde explained.
Jorgen, a Norwegian army instructor from the platoon commander training course, who asked not to be identified, told Business Insider that during the training, special attention is paid to support fire to suppress the enemy so that friendly forces can safely withdraw to the trenches.
He said that Ukrainians who had been at the front were distinguished by their “rich” combat experience and had developed their own effective methods. The advice he received from the cadets “really worked” and helped “reduce the risks for our guys,” Jorgen explained.
Deadly danger in defensive positions
Soldiers have been waiting for death in the trenches of the Ukrainian front for a long time. However, threats are steadily increasing — particularly from drones — and making the situation even more dangerous.
Soldiers risk getting stuck in trenches, dugouts, and other defensive fortifications for a long time. Ukrainian soldiers said they had to stay in one position for months because drones and artillery prevented further movement. They had to wait for the weather, fire support, or a lucky combination of circumstances to move out without risking immediate detection and shelling.
An American veteran who fought for the Armed Forces of Ukraine previously told Business Insider that life in the trenches often boils down to “you sit and wait, and artillery shells rain down on you for hours on end.”
Constant danger can complicate the performance of seemingly elementary tasks. He said that the soldiers couldn't even remove the corpses, while another American veteran who fought for Ukraine said that the soldiers couldn't deepen or strengthen their trenches in any way because they were afraid to “stick their heads out.”
“That's when they were being killed,” he explained.
“As soon as the guys try to move," the veteran recalls, "the enemy starts firing, and then you have to pretend to be dead in the hope that sooner or later there will be a little respite to get up and run.”
But even just staying in place is not a guarantee of safety. The veteran told how he had to “literally lie low” and hope that nothing would fall into the trench and destroy the position. “You're just squatting there, motionless, and there's nothing you can do,” he recalls.
When safe rotation is not possible, soldiers can be stuck on the front line for a long time.
Soldiers of the 121st Territorial Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine complained in August that there had been no rotation for four months and that they were running out of food and water.
The command said they would be replaced as soon as the security situation allowed. Intensive surveillance from drones has made it difficult to transfer personnel to and from frontline positions.
The lessons of positional warfare
At the Jomsborg camp, Ukrainian combat experience, including in-depth knowledge of positional warfare, is combined with advanced Western developments and is used in training military personnel to move through trenches and conduct trench warfare.
Jorgen said that the tactics of penetration into trenches and evacuation from them, which the Ukrainians taught him, turned out to be better than all the lessons he could have taught himself. “We adhere to the principles and try to make sure that the guys rely on the acquired skills," he explained. "I think it's much more valuable than my personal experience.”
The positional fighting in Ukraine is unlike anything the Western military has seen in recent times. The positions are monitored from drones, the firing cycle is steadily accelerating and allows you to detect movements and hit targets in a matter of minutes, and even the usual delivery of military supplies or the rotation of personnel can turn into a deadly operation.
The West pays close attention to this and, working closely with Ukrainians, is reviewing preparations for such military operations and its own expectations.
At the Jomsborg camp, the leaders are trying to make the training trenches look like the real ones that Ukrainian soldiers will soon face. “Ukrainians either build training trenches themselves, or they tell us how to make them so that they look exactly like real ones,” Molde explained.
He said that the configuration of the trenches “has already changed a couple of times, although we have been working for less than a year,” stressing how difficult it is to keep up with the rapidly changing battlefield.
Although many Western militaries pay less attention to trench operations, they remain an important and deadly part of modern warfare, which is why they are a priority in Jomsborg. According to Molde, the goal is to “keep as many Ukrainians in this battle as long as possible.”
He added that there is hope that “we will reach a situation where Ukraine will be able to negotiate a truce — or a cease-fire on good terms.” “That's the point,” he concluded.
